Metaphors of Reading: Cognition and Embodiment in Contemporary Metafiction
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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2017 Metaphors of Reading: Cognition and Embodiment in Contemporary Metafiction Amanda L. Bailey Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Bailey, Amanda L., "Metaphors of Reading: Cognition and Embodiment in Contemporary Metafiction" (2017). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 5142. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/5142 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Metaphors of Reading: Cognition and Embodiment in Contemporary Metafiction Amanda L. Bailey Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Ryan Claycomb, Ph.D., chair Lara Farina, Ph.D. Kirk Hazen, Ph.D. Lisa Weihman, Ph.D. Vera Tobin, Ph.D. Department of English Morgantown, West Virginia 2017 Keywords: reading, conceptual metaphor theory, sensory studies, cognitive approaches to literature, metafiction Copyright 2017 Amanda L. Bailey ABSTRACT Metaphors of Reading: Cognition and Embodiment in Contemporary Metafiction Amanda L. Bailey This project brings together methodologies from sensory and cognitive approaches to literature to posit that Conceptual Metaphors of Readings mediate the experience of readers with fiction and provide an organizing framework for scholars and readers alike to consider the diverse sensory and cognitive phenomena that are used to describe the experience of reading. These conceptual metaphors are culturally and historically developed and can be used in combination with each other by authors to achieve desired effects on readers; however, there are clear patterns in metaphor blends. I demonstrate the robustness of this framework by analyzing metafictional readers, scenes of reading, and reader/writer relationships within nine metafictional novels of the modern, postmodern, and contemporary periods. In particular, I locate the figure of the metafictional reader in works of fiction as a cipher through which the actual reader presses and exerts herself and her reading practices in configuring her own experience of a text. Due to the sophisticated interplay of convention and novelty at work, the metafictional reader should be understood as an embodied metaphor of reading in which the author explores, with the actual reader in tow, an original conception of reading through a familiar configuration: the reading self. Although many metaphors of reading exist and have existed throughout literary history, in this project, I examine six that are especially relevant in contemporary works: (1) reading as an encounter with sensory bodies, (2) reading as journey, (3) reading as sexual intercourse, (4) reading as contact with the past, (5) reading as performance, and (6) reading as an encounter with nature. I organize these readings and combinations of metaphors according to four popularly touted abstract understandings of why readers read: (1) Reading as Connection, (2) Reading as Challenge, (3) Reading as Pursuit, and (4) Reading as Escape. Bailey iii Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...…….....iv Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..……..1-32 Chapter 1: Embodied Metaphors of Reading……………………………………….….…….33-72 Chapter 2: Reading as Connection…………………………………………………….……73-124 Chapter 3: Reading as Challenge……………………………………………….....…..…..125-179 Chapter 4: Reading as Pursuit………………………………………………………….….180-230 Chapter 5: Reading as Escape……………………………………………………………..231-282 Coda: The future of embodied reading?...............................................................................283-295 Works Cited………..……………………………………………………………………....296-312 Appendix A: A sampling of contemporary experimental literature’s visual aesthetics…...313-315 Bailey iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank my dissertation committee and especially its director, Ryan Claycomb, for their enthusiastic support of an unorthodox project that took off in an uncertain direction but has landed, I sincerely hope, more or less on solid ground. Without their belief in my ability to sift through the massive copia that is the human experience of reading fiction, with frequent reminders to resist the urge to lose myself in the fecundity that burgeoned in and around each chapter, handing me the shears when necessary to cull and cut out some semblance of a pathway, this project would not have been possible. Bailey 1 INTRODUCTION I. Thinking about Reading: Reading as (more than) Cognitive Activity If we think about the experience of reading fiction, we tend to dwell on the elements that connect it to cognitive functioning: consciousness, reason, word recognition, memory, and other cerebral exercises. This is not terribly surprising. After all, reading is a learned skill that takes time and mental energy to acquire, usually coinciding with the acquisition of other cognitive abilities developed in childhood such as sustained attentiveness, analysis of cause and effect, and Theory of Mind—that is, the recognition of mental states, intentions, desires, etc. within others. Reading is a skill that is tested repeatedly, constituting educational benchmarks, and is commonly associated with general intelligence, social acclimation, and even positive personality traits like empathy (Djikic et al. “Reading Other Minds”; Djikic et al. “On Being Moved by Art”; Kidd and Castano). All told, it is entirely rational and empirically satisfactory to conclude that reading is an activity of the mind, combining several cognitive functions and processes to create for the reader the experience of transportation—of being “lost in a good book.”1 Further evidence of reading’s cognitive nature is in the reader’s necessity for limited physical interruptions and sensory stimulation while engaged in the act of reading. Absorption in fiction requires attentiveness and concentration which is easier to achieve with limitations of ambient and direct stimuli around the reading subject. Therefore, it would seem that as opposed to being a part of the act of reading, sensory experience and even awareness is arguably a hindrance to its successful achievement. 1 As discussed in more detail in the following chapter, the popular use of the term “transportation” to describe the experience of reading is prevalent in both academic and lay evaluations of reading. Bailey 2 A rejection of the body and especially its more proximate senses (touch, taste, and smell) in intellectual pursuits has a long history in Western culture, and the Cartesian mind-body split has been upheld without much disruption in our understanding of reading. This is in large part due to a continuing cultural emphasis on the greater significance of the mind in the formation and identity of the creative self—a process in which reading has long been seen to hold a crucial role. Famous quotes connecting reading with positive self-formation and self-enlargement by famous figures, who have themselves achieved greatness in connection to their valuing of reading, abound in our societal knowledge-pool: Oscar Wilde is supposed to have said, “It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it”; attributed to Edward P. Morgan is the quote: “A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy”; and of course, Mark Twain’s ever popular: “The man who does not read good books is at no advantage over the man that can’t read them.” Even if these and similar quotes are misattributed or reworded to better suit the modern age, the point is that they endure as tried and true proverbs about reading’s importance to becoming a fully-cultured, fully- actualized individual.2 Psychologists such as Steven Pinker have even famously advocated the 2 In my characterization of these quotes as “enduring” and “abounding,” I refer to their ubiquity online and in physical settings (inscribed on the walls of libraries and bookstores, pinned up on offices of English grad students, etc.). A simple Google search of “quotes about reading” or “quotes about books” brings up thousands of one or two sentence axioms—many of which are repeated (more or less correctly) and reposted on blogs, websites, and social media profiles in which the writer presumably wishes to identify him or herself as someone who loves and appreciates reading. A small faction does appear concerned with the accuracy of these quotes’ origins (see for example the wikiquotes discussion page for Oscar Wilde) with individuals asking for researched confirmation from others. Interestingly, misattributed quotes continue to circulate